


Gay Solidarity and Other Reasons for Fighting Monsters

by Trifoliate_undergrowth



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Gay Relationship, Fix-It, Gen, It Is Still Season One And We Are In Denial, M/M, Minor canon divergence to have people not die horribly. people being both David Ramao and Sasha, Pining Martin and clueless Jon, Sasha as in Definitely Yes The Right Sasha, fix-it for MAG 38: Lost and Found specifically, in which MAG 38 has been researched but the worms haven't showed up yet, pre-Jonmartin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-02-12 23:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21484942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trifoliate_undergrowth/pseuds/Trifoliate_undergrowth
Summary: "So I was like, wait hold on, this vase ATE A GUY and it's still OUT there somewhere? Presumably with David Ramao still inside--however that works? That's not okay.""Martin, I hate to break it to you, but most of the statements we've taken do not end well for the subjects.""Yeah, but we can DO something about this one!""How?""Well to start with I talked to everyone in Artifact Acquisitions. What? They're almost as small a department as we are, there are only like, nine people, give or take a few that haven't reported back from ghost auctions...."
Relationships: Andre Ramao/David Ramao, Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims
Comments: 46
Kudos: 106





	1. Rivalry Between a Man and His(?) Vase

Two shoes. Two socks. Trousers. Underpants. Shirt. Raincoat. The envelope hanging around his neck. The ring on his left hand. The rain on his skin. The only things he owned. It couldn’t take them away. Anything that he put down, let go of, or anything that he put into his pockets, disappeared. But things he wore, or that were touching his skin, wouldn’t go.

Shoes socks trousers underpants shirt raincoat. The envelope hanging around his neck. The ring on his left hand. The rain on his skin. He was alone now, hiding in an alley, because he tended to mumble to himself when he counted over the things he owned and he was tired of the strange looks he got, the way people either sped past him or stopped to ask if he was quite alright. Once he’d had the police called on him, which had terrified him, because if they decided to take him in and took away his belongings… the moment they left his skin it was almost certain he’d never see them again. It would be as if they’d never existed. Police records would show that he’d been brought in naked. The clothes he didn’t care about, even the envelope of money, at this point, could only be used to buy things that would disappear as soon as he let go of them; unless it was something edible which he ate very quickly, though even then he had to be careful not to look away from it while he was eating or it might go too. But the ring he wouldn’t lose. He refused to. He had never taken it off through the whole ordeal, it had stayed in contact with his skin and seemed to be safe, and he wouldn’t risk it now. The ring told him that he wasn’t just a delusional tramp. His memories were real. He remembered when he’d picked it out, when he’d put it on. He remembered David. God, did he remember David. Sometimes at night, half-asleep, he thought he could hear him breathing beside him still, but when he woke it was all the same. He’d check himself. Shoes socks trousers underpants shirt raincoat. The envelope hanging around his neck. The ring on his left hand. Then he’d go wander the city.

The vase certainly hadn’t been in the house when he sold it, though he didn’t know where else it could have gone to. Of course, he didn’t know how it could have fit shoes, pictures, shirts, a tie, a teapot and finally his entire husband inside either. See, this was the crazy part. He couldn’t tell anyone that he chose to live on the street because if he didn’t own anything, the evil vase that had plagued him since the moment he bought it wouldn’t be able to take anything else away from him. They’d think he was crazy. Sometimes he thought he was crazy. That was why he had to keep the ring.

He had a faint sliver of hope. The vase had seemed to become more active the longer he owned it, the more it consumed—it hadn’t started disappearing until after it had taken David, and it hadn't started out by taking large things, either, but had worked its way up. Perhaps, the less it stole, the weaker it would get. So he wouldn’t let it take anything, and he hoped it hungered, he hoped it suffered in whatever strange way a disappearing-vase-dwelling entity can suffer, and he hoped that one day it would be weak enough that it could no longer hide from him and he would find the vase again. He wanted to smash it. Smash it to powder. Smash it so fine you could no longer pick out the maddening fractal pattern painted in blue across the outside. Perhaps selling it, if only the vase would let him, would have rid him of the curse but he wasn’t interested in that now. It wouldn’t bring David back, and it would subject someone else to the madness he’d gone through. No, he had to destroy it.

Deep inside, he still had some crazy hope that when he smashed it, it would give him back what he’d lost. But it had been years since he last saw his husband. Even if he wasn’t crazy, David had to be dead.

All the more reason to smash the vase.

Shoes socks trousers—

He turned, and stopped. There, sitting prim and pristine in the center of the alley, perched on a piece of wet cardboard as if on a fine rug, was the vase. Geometric patterns of dizzying blue swirled across its surface. A few spots of rain appeared on its smoothness, but it was still mostly dry, confirming his certainty that it hadn’t been there a moment before.

His heart was pounding. He reached down to where he knew a broken pallet was lying, and without looking away from the vase he felt his way to the edge and grasped it, and lifted, stepping closer, head swimming with the anticipation—

Then, without really knowing he was going to do it, he blinked. His eyes were closed for a fraction of a second and when they opened again the vase was gone.

Andre Ramao smashed the pallet into pieces on the alleyway ground and screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Crawls out of The Lonely to slide this onto your desk and then vanishes*  
The Magnus Archives is consuming what little soul I have left but I'm so sensitive to horror I Cannot listen to it late in the day I have to listen to it in the morning when the sun is bright and I have plenty of time to get over it before going to bed or I am going to have A Bad Time(TM).  
ANYWAYS  
The first chapter of this is going to be the angstiest, it gets exponentially fluffier from here on out. This is blatant fix-it and I do what I want.  
...I haven't even made it halfway through Season 2 but I've seen spoilers and I know (vaguely) how badly I'm going to be hurt and I already hate it don't judge me


	2. The Magnus Institute Front Steps and Other Unlikely Slip-N-Slides

Jonathan Sims was awakened by the sound of his door opening, followed by voices; one of which quickly hushed the other.

“Shhh, Sasha, look.” That sounded like Martin.

“Oh, he’s still here?” Sasha responded. “Doesn’t he ever go home?”

“Shhh!” Of course, Martin was effusively considerate as usual. For a few moments the only sounds were the quiet shuffling of papers and drawers. It sounded like they had come in to file something, probably research on one of the statements. Jon thought of sitting up and asking which one it was, what they’d found, but he didn’t. As of matter of fact, he had meant to say something sarcastic when Sasha remarked on him still being in his office, but he’d been so sleepy that the mental impulse never made it to his body, and he’d remained motionless.

He decided to fake being asleep until they left him alone, and then go back to the real thing. Getting up just wasn’t worth the effort.

“Don’t you think we should wake him up?” said Sasha quietly.

Jon tried to remain as convincingly limp as possibly and hoped they wouldn’t.

“Um,” said Martin. “Well. I dunno, he looks so c—peaceful. Y-you know? ...Stop looking at me like that.”

“He’s going to miss his train.”

“There’s a bed in the storage room for a reason, this isn’t the first time he’s stayed too late.”

“Really? I mean, I believe you, but—wow, that can’t be healthy.”

Jon considered sitting up and responding ‘neither is eating a pint of peanut butter every day in the breakroom for a SNACK’ but again, the effort just wasn’t worth it. His body was warm and heavy and he didn’t want to disturb the rare softness that had crept into his habitually tense muscles.

There was quiet movement, then Martin said “I’ll be right back.” For a few moments he thought they had already left, then he heard someone, presumably Martin, come back inside. He didn’t pay much attention to the footsteps, more interested in the slow descent back into his interrupted sleep. Then something heavy and smothering settled around his shoulders and his heart rate spiked.

Martin, moving slowly and doing his best not to disturb him, had gently draped a blanket around Jon’s shoulders; and in a fraction of a second the previously serene man had bolted out of his chair, screaming. His elbow caught Martin in the throat and he went over backwards, hitting his head on a filing cabinet and knocking down an avalanche of Gertrude Robinson’s unfiled statements which had been piled on top.

Then there was an awkward silence.

“Okay,” said Sasha, “don’t sneak up on Jon while he’s taking a nap. Good to know. I’ll remember that. Are you guys okay?”

“hwwaaat?” wheezed Jon, still not entirely awake. The lights were too bright and everything was blurry. He seemed to be holding his blanket from the cot in the storage room. Martin was sprawled against the filing cabinet in front of him, and a few papers fluttered down from the pile on top of the cabinet to join the ones lying in his lap. A couple were stuck between his shoulders and the cabinet. One was balanced on top of his head. As he noticed Jon looking at him, Martin shrank back as if trying to disappear under the pile of statements.

“Sorry.”

“...Martin.” Jon looked from him to the blanket, finally woke up enough to finish connecting the dots, and sighed. He folded the blanket and set it on his desk. “Don’t do that again.”

“I, ah. Thought you might be cold. Sorry.”

Martin shifted forward, displacing some of the statements. Jon leapt forwards and halted him with a hand on his head.

“DON’T MOVE.” Martin froze. “These are already disarranged… from whatever haphazard order Gertrude saw fit to “file” them in. I don’t want this mess getting any worse than it already is.” He knelt, collecting a handful of papers that had been about to slide away under the cabinet.

“Uh—”

“Just don’t move.” Jon continued picking up papers, trying to keep them in more or less the order they’d fallen down in. Martin, to his credit, kept very still. Sasha came around the desk to help. “So, what brings you two back here so late?”

“You know, we could ask you that,” said Martin. Jon took the paper off the top of Martin’s head and glared at him.

“Finally found that death certificate,” said Sasha, “so we came in to file it.”

Jon breathed a sigh of relief. “From the Yung case? Good, I’ll file it as discredited tomorrow. That’s a relief. …Martin, I appreciate that you’re keeping still as I asked, but are you breathing?”

“Yes. Yes I am breathing.”

“Okay, good. …Are you okay? How hard did you hit your head?”

“What? No, no I’m fine. Barely bumped it. It was mostly my shoulders actually.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two. Honestly, Jon, I’m not hurt.”

“You look a bit sick.”

“I-I’m fine.”

“Good.” Jon leaned closer to collect a stack of papers that had distributed themselves across the front of Martin’s body. Fortunately he was able to shift them back into the original order pretty easily.

Sasha went into a coughing fit.

“And what’s wrong with you?” said Jon, patting her roughly on the back and swearing when he dropped one of his papers and it slid across the floor.

“Oh I’m fine, just got something in my throat,” said Sasha. Jon got up to chase down the paper she’d dropped, and Sasha poked Martin. “How are you feeling?” she asked in a low voice. “I’m pretty sure I saw your soul leave your body at least three times.” 

“I, ah. Yeah. I’m. I’m okay.” Martin laughed. He was mostly un-buried at this point, and helped Sasha collect the last few papers into some semblance of order. Jon came back and started trying to figure out how the stacks they’d salvaged had originally fit together, muttering to himself.

“Think we can leave it like that for now? It’s late, and I don’t think we’ve split up any statements that go together,” said Sasha. Jon grunted, not looking up. Martin carefully got up and shook a final statement out of his shirt.

“Jon? Jon? Jon. Are you planning to sleep here or go home? Because it’s getting late. Jon?”

Jon finally looked up from the papers, blinking. “What?”

“It’s late,” said Sasha. “Also, Martin has something to tell you.”

“What?” said Martin, paling.

“…about the vase case?” said Sasha, giving him a look. Martin recovered.

“Oh right right yes I was going to mention that. Yes. Ah, do you have a minute?”

“How long a minute?” said Jon; “I think Sasha’s right, I’ll deal with the rest of this in the morning.”

“Minutes are usually sixty seconds,” said Sasha.

“Okay,” said Martin, “then I lied, I can’t explain it that quickly.”

Jon pulled his chair out, slumped into it and lazily gestured for him to continue.

“Um, okay, so. You know the, uh, the Ramao case? With the, the teleporting vase that ate things—”

“Case 0120606, yes, continue.”

“Right. So, I was looking at that one, and I was like, wait hold on, this vase ATE A GUY and it's still OUT there somewhere? Presumably with David Ramao still inside—however that works? That's not okay."

"Martin, I hate to break it to you, but most of the statements we've taken do not end well for the subjects."

"Yeah, but we can DO something about this one!"

"How?"

"Well to start with I talked to everyone in Artifact Acquisitions.” Jon looked at him in shock. “What? They're almost as small a department as we are, there are only like, nine people, give or take a few that haven't reported back from ghost auctions...."

“_Ghost_ auctions?”

“Oh, you know, the weird—I mean, the supernatural ones. People go missing in Acquisitions, apparently it’s not the safest place to work. Anyways, I got some of them to promise to keep an eye out, but none of them had seen anything like the vase we’re looking for, so I started going into antique shops on my breaks, and on my way to and from work—”

“Is that what you’ve been doing?”

“Yes… Sorry, I know I was late a few times—”

“No, no, I’m just surprised that—well—you were actually doing something work-related? I just assumed you were flaking off to write poetry or whatever else it is that you do.”

“I mean, I have done that—never mind. I figured I wasn’t likely to find it if nobody else could, but it didn’t hurt to look.”

“Why assume that it would show up in an antique store at all?”

“I mean, good question, but if you ARE an antique vase, where better to hide than in plain sight with other antique vases? And Andre Ramao picked it up from an antique dealer in the first place, so it’s not too much of a stretch to guess that hanging out with normal antiques in the hopes of finding a new victim is sort of its signature move. But anyways, I didn’t find anything, but I kept in contact with the Acquisitions people, and one of them mentioned that the woman who got him into the supernatural was his girlfriend’s cousin’s stepmother—”

“What.”

“Okay I know it’s a mouthful but I met her Jon and she’s really nice and guess what, she has experience with this kind of thing, never gave a statement herself for personal reasons but she knows about the Institute and that’s what got Vance working here—that’s the lady’s niece’s boyfriend—”

“I’m not interested in the family history of everyone who works here, Martin. Have you found anything or not?”

“Well, no, but Maria—that’s the lady I mentioned—promised to look around, she collects and sells antiques as a hobby and she knows where to look. She seemed very interested when I told her about the Ramao case. So, between her and me and everyone in Acquisitions—”

“You’re not going to find it. It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack.”

“I know that, but a cursed vase is just a bit easier to find than a needle, isn’t it? And there’s no harm in trying. You never know. Maybe one day it’ll turn up—”

“With a skeleton inside? It’s been years, Martin, do you really think David Ramao is still alive?”

“...I don’t know. No harm in trying though, eh?”

Jon sighed. “No. But I hate to see you wasting this… uncharacteristic burst of productivity on something so likely to fail. Why do you care, Martin? Why this case in particular?”

“Oh ah—I don’t know, solidarity maybe? It’s just—they seemed like nice people, it makes me happy to see older people being happy like that, gives me hope for my own future, you know? Like—like maybe I won’t—be alone forever—despite everything. And—I just want them to be alright. Because maybe then I can be alright.”

Martin smiled desperately, but he looked like he was about to cry. Jon became very interested in the pattern of the blanket on his desk.

“Mhm. Well, tell me if you find anything.”

“Right! Thank you. Well, uh, if anyone from Acquisitions comes up here talking about a vase, that’s why.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“…So are you staying here?”

Jon thought about it for a moment, started to say yes, decided that Sasha and Martin were judging him, and stood up with a “No. I was just leaving.”

“Oh, good, we’ll walk out together,” smiled Martin.

It had rained outside, and the deserted streets glittered under the streetlights. There was a fine mist in the air, not quite rain, not quite clear; just thick enough to drift sideways in the wind and collect slowly in your hair. Jon paused on the top step and breathed in. The chill cleared away the last layers of drowsiness from his mind.

Then a dark shape jumped up from somewhere behind the steps and yelled “MARTIN!” and Jon slipped and sat down hard in a puddle of rainwater on the top step.

Alright, that was awake enough. Now he was angry and he wanted to go back to sleep. He shouldn’t have gone outside.

“Who the hell are you?” he snapped at the woman, now clambering up the steps towards them.

“Maria!” said Martin, delightedly.

“Martin!” said Maria. Jon, with a cold, creeping chill of realization and rainwater, realized that this must be the one guy’s girlfriend’s cousin’s stepmother—and that she was carrying a blue-and-white vase, holding it firmly tucked under one arm with the other hand gripping the lip of the opening. “Can you hold the door for me? I’ve been waiting out here for someone to come out, I’m afraid to put this down—”

Suddenly she slipped, and Jon, acting on instinct, leapt forward to catch the vase. A few moments later he found himself curled on the bottom step, stunned and bruised and clutching a vase that had should not, reasonably, have been in this position. He’d caught it while it was upright…right?

“Oh my God are you alright?! I’m so sorry I should have warned you, it’s been trying to escape since I reached the bottom of the street, I don’t think it likes the Institute!” said Maria. Jon, looking dazedly up at them, saw Martin, Maria and Sasha all staring down at him from the top of the steps. His vision was blurred by the mist now blowing directly into his face.

“Nobody does,” said Jon, slowly sliding off the last step and onto the sidewalk. “Ow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just imagine that the reason that the Ramao statement gets addressed much earlier in this AU is because, even before tonight, Martin had already knocked down a bunch of Gertrude's papers when he bumped into a table and when they got shuffled around the Ramao case ended up on top and that's why this is happening before Prentiss.


	3. You Know Shit's Getting Real When Martin Improvises a Flamethrower

“So it’s.. Trying to break itself? Isn’t that kind of our plan?” asked Sasha. Jon was still lying on the sidewalk, clutching the vase and afraid to move.

“Not if we can help it,” said Maria. “Especially since it seems so keen on breaking itself. That might just release the thing that’s inside it.”

Jon shivered, glad he hadn’t obeyed his initial instinct to just smash the thing on the steps as soon as he saw it. Maria was right, if it was willing to break itself, that must not be a good way (for them) to deal with it.

“Maria,” said Jon, “Would you come get it? I’ve got a plan.”

“Oh?”

“Not for disposing of the vase, just for getting it up these stairs. If we make a chain and pass it from one person to the other, we’ll be less likely to slip, since no one’s moving while they’re holding the vase.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea. Pass it here.”

They got it into the foyer and closed the door against the rain, then Maria slumped down with a sigh, keeping both hands wrapped around the vase. Jon got a good look at her for the first time—a short, wide woman in cargo pants, with greying dark hair that fell over one eye.

“So,” said Jon. “That’s the extent of my plan. Do you have one for… dealing with it? Martin made it sound like you were an expert.”

Maria laughed. “I’ve seen something a bit similar, but it wasn’t on this scale. I had a decorative box that seemed to be haunted. No one ever used it, so I thought maybe that was why it got like that—it was always closed and dark. I decided to prop it open and always have a light shining on it, and the weird stuff stopped. I think whatever the thing is, it likes to play with your mind; but maybe once you can convince yourself that the container it’s using is empty, then it becomes truly empty. That’s my theory, anyway. I don’t know how well it’ll hold up.”

“Right, well, normally I’d tell you to leave it in Artifact Storage and we’d get around to researching it eventually, but considering that it can apparently teleport—”

“And David Ramao is in there,” said Martin.

“He’s dead by now if he is,” said Jon. He hoped Martin wasn’t getting his hopes too high. “But you’re right, we should try to confirm his death if possible.”

“I’d like to test something,” said Maria, “If you’re all up to it. I don’t know what will happen.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Fairly simple. What do you see when you look into the vase?”

Jon leaned over it, frowning. Martin joined him on the other side.

“Nothing,” said Jon. “It’s… very dark.”

“Exactly. So my plan is—could you put your hands on it for a second? I don’t trust it to stay there if I look away—thank you.” Maria pulled a small LED light out of her pocket. “I’m going to stick this in there, light it up, and look inside.”

“That… um… sounds like a potentially horrible idea.”

“Got a better one?”

“I mean, my suggestion would have been to smash it, but that’s looking like a bad idea now,” said Jon. “And we obviously can’t just put it in Artifact Storage and expect it to stay there.”

“Right,” said Martin, quite cheerfully. Jon gave him a suspicious look. He knew this vase had eaten people, right? “I don’t think we should do it in the hallway, though, too much room for—well, for something to run around and hide, if something comes out. What about the storage room? It’s…. slightly more open, at least, if we move some things aside.”

“Alright,” said Jon, then “Why are you so calm about this?”

“Oh I’m anything but calm! Do you think you can get it into the storage room safely?” said Martin, standing up and brushing himself off, then pulling his keys out of his pocket.

“…You’re leaving? Now?”

“No, no no no! I just—I thought weapons wouldn’t be a bad idea. You have a lighter, right?”

“I..... I do, why? Don’t tell Elias.”

“Awesome, I’ll be right back.” Martin left, humming quietly to himself.

Jon watched him leave. “…Did he say weapons.”

“He did,” said Sasha, and Jon realized that she’d been rather quiet. Keeping his hands on the vase, he turned to look at her, and saw an expression on her face that he’d never seen before.

“What do you think about all this, Sasha?”

“I think it’s dangerous. I used to work in Artifact Storage, and… I transferred to the Archive for a reason.”

“Do you think we should wait for backup?”

“I don’t see the point really, but it bothers me all the same.”

“Understood. I’m involved now, but you can leave if you like. Or watch outside the door and call 999 if things go badly.”

Sasha shook her head. “I want to be with the rest of you.”

“Alright. Well, do you mind holding the door open for us?”

Jon and Maria set the vase on the floor in the storage room, and Sasha began clearing up the space; stacking boxes on the cot and pushing the creaky office chair that no one used into the corner. There was enough room now to maneuver, although hopefully they wouldn’t need it.

Jon was still holding on to the vase, kneeling across from Maria.

“I think it’s a good idea to have at least two people holding it,” said Maria, and Jon nodded. This was a stupid idea, but they were doing it in the Archives, and as Head Archivist he should take responsibility for it. He’d be right there in the front if something went wrong.

Martin returned, and set down two objects with a metallic clang. Looking over, Jon saw a simple L-shaped lug wrench, and… an aerosol can of hairspray.

“Are we going to give the monster a makeover, Martin?”

“Not quite,” Martin smiled, hefting the can in one hand and holding out the other. “Can I have that lighter?”

“…Ah, I see. Is that safe?”

“For me or the monster? …. I mean, neither, actually.”

“Don’t do that unless it’s absolutely necessary, alright? We don’t want to set the fire alarm off.”

“Right. Sasha, do you want the homemade flamethrower, or—”

“No, I’ll leave that for you,” said Sasha, picking up the lug wrench and giving it an experimental swing.

“Alright,” said Maria, “Jon is helping me hold the vase, but it wouldn’t hurt for the rest of you to keep an eye on it as well. If we let it get away now I doubt it’ll let us find it again.”

They were now facing it at four points, Jon and Maria holding it from opposite sides, Sasha and Martin facing each other between them. Sasha was holding the lug wrench like she was getting ready to golf-putt the vase into the stratosphere. Martin had one finger on the bottle’s spray lever and the lighter poised in front of it, a manic gleam in his eye that Jon had never seen before. It was… interesting.

Maria took out the LED light and clicked it on. It had an adhesive patch on the back to allow it to be attached to a wall. She peeled off the paper, said “Ready?”, and then pushed it down the neck of the vase and stuck it onto the side.

Jon looked inside as she pulled her arm out, and saw—the glossy white bottom and sides of a rather large Chinese vase. He had a sinking feeling. It was an ordinary vase after all, even if it did look rather beautiful with the light shining through the porcelain. It was finely made, and the glow seeping out through its sides was perfectly smooth, making the hypnotic patterns painted in blue seem to slowly flow across it. No, they _were_ flowing. And suddenly he couldn’t shake the idea that they were somehow familiar. Why?

“Jon?”

_He doesn’t like it. _

“Jon??”

Spiderwebs were their own kind of fractal.

“JON!”

_Mr. Spider wants more. _

“JON JON JON JON”

He was falling.

Then with a sharp jerk he was pulled backwards. Sasha was gripping his arm and Martin was clinging to his shirt on the other side. It was Martin, he realized suddenly, who had been calling him; the two of them must have jumped for him simultaneously, dragging him backwards. 

“What—what was I doing?”

“Nothing yet but you looked really scared and you were leaning like, _really_ close to the vase,” said Martin, slowly releasing him.

“Are you alright?” said Maria, still keeping the vase in a death grip.

Before he could answer, they were interrupted by the soft thump of a pair of shoes falling to the floor.

He could still see the light shining through the sides of the vase, but now it flickered and dimmed as objects passed in front of it. A sweater tumbled to the floor. A Fleet Foxes CD. Something that looked like a WWI tunic. Then more and more, until the vase was almost covered, and Jon brushed objects away and put his hands back on the vase—“It’s over, I’m alright, let me help” he said in response to Maria’s look—and then the light dimmed as something large lodged in the vase and stuck. Jon felt another tug of that strange presence—Maria did, too, from her expression. But, he told himself, it’s not really a spider. It can’t really control me. Just don’t stick your face right next to it this time.

“Do you think we should turn it upside-down and shake it,” said Jon to Maria, a bit sharply, and was relieved to see her shake off whatever it was that she was feeling, meet his eyes and nod. They stood, carefully turned the vase upside down—

And with a sharp sound of overstressed porcelain the vase shattered and a body fell to the floor. Two bodies. One looked human, the other, wrapped around it and screaming, was anything but. It twisted and leapt at Jon, and he felt the shock of an alien presence fully focused on eliminating him specifically. He froze.

The lug wrench hit what he assumed was its head at high speeds and knocked it backwards. Whatever it was, it was lightweight. And very fast. It was already scrambling back, and Maria dove out of the way to let Sasha swing the lug wrench, and Jon, taking a cue from her, scuttled backwards and crashed into the chair in the corner, nearly falling into it. He thought, in a dazed kind of way, how funny that would have been. Just collapsing into a chair while there was a monster rampaging through the room, like a stiffly corseted Victorian lady fainting onto a couch.

Sasha seemed for a few moments to be winning, now that Maria and Jon were out of the way she had room to swing and got a couple more hits in, driving the thing back into a corner; but then in a movement so fast it blurred it dove past her and her next swing missed, tearing open a box of files. Behind her, the thing was suddenly in front of Martin.

Jon saw long, dirty nails reaching around Martin’s throat, and his hand found the back of the chair. Then, somehow, with no transition that he could recognize, Sasha was shouting at him to stop, and he was beating something on the ground with furious over-the-shoulder blows from the chair. He only stopped when the base broke off and rolled away. The thing in front of him was bleeding out in black streaks.

Martin stepped in front of him and gripped his shoulders. “Jon, I think it’s dead. Calm down. I’m okay.”

Jon took a deep breath, only then realizing that he’d been holding his breath. Martin seemed about to say something reassuring, but “Martin,” said Sasha, “Um. Is it moving?”

Jon raised the remains of the chair for another swing, but before he could bring it down Martin had spun, flicked the lighter, and hit the thing on the floor with a blast of flaming aerosol spray. It shrieked, catching fire like old dusty fabric, and a blast of heat hit Jon in the face. Martin grabbed his arm and stumbled backwards away from the climbing wall of flames. Sasha shouted something.

“Um,” said Martin in a very high voice.

Jon realized what Sasha must have been shouting about. The flames were between them and the door, and the small room was heating up fast.

“Can we get around it?” Sasha was yelling.

“Um, I don’t, I don’t know! I’m sorry, I panicked, I wasn’t thinking!” Martin responded, voice very high.

“I mean,” said Sasha, “It _worked_… really well…”

Jon braced himself to jump through the flames, fling the door open, and stop-drop-and-roll in the hallway. If he didn’t die, and managed to get the door open, the others could follow him. But then a horrible shrieking noise started—not monster shrieking, but the fire alarm. A second later the fire suppression system came on with a hiss, flooding the room with CO2 gas. The flames were still there, blazing angrily against the descending gas, but it was suddenly hard to focus on them because his head was spinning—

“Jon?”

Martin was holding him. He could feel his body going limp, and Martin looked panicked.

,

His cheek was against something warm, but a cold, damp wind ran through his hair. Something shifted beneath him, and he blinked his eyes open to find a stranger with greying red hair holding him.

“Hgrkrg,” he said, instinctively trying to push away, and the strange man… passed him to Martin. Now Martin was holding him. Why was everyone carrying him like a baby? (At least Martin was softer).

…alright, maybe it was a good idea. His head was still spinning and the few lights on the dark, rainy street were too bright.

“It’s alright, we’re okay,” said Martin, then stumbled and sat down, still gently cradling Jon.

“Jon? Oh good,” said Maria, joining them. She looked terrible. 

A lug wrench clanged onto the ground, and Sasha slumped down near Martin. “He’s back. Jon, how do you feel?”

“….Huh,” said Jon intelligently. “What… what ah….”

“CO2. I think we all passed out,” said Sasha.

“And then what?” asked Jon, looking up at the stranger.

“Oh,” said Martin, “I think this is—” Jon clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Wait. We’ll do this the scientific way. What is your name?”

The stranger squatted down. He was barefoot, wearing pajama pants and a T-shirt. “David Ramao,” he said. Jon sighed in relief.

“…Are you sure?”

“You saw the _other thing_ get burned up,” said Sasha.

“Are we sure we saw it?” said Jon, wriggling out of Martin’s arms to sit on the wet pavement beside him.

“Jon, really! Yes, we saw it,” said Martin.

“It’s alright,” said the stranger presumed to be David Ramao. “After… whatever that was, I don’t blame you. Would me having a pulse reassure you?”

“Maybe?”

David extended his arm and Jon poked him curiously. He felt real. Slightly clammy in the damp air. Jon felt for a pulse. He found it easily, the thin twitching thread of life at his wrist. He could see veins just beneath the skin. Feel hair on the back of his arm. He certainly seemed real, and nothing like whatever they’d released from the vase. He reminded himself of the odd shape it had taken after he’d beaten it with the chair, and the way it had caught fire, and he shuddered and dared to hope for the best.

“So why didn’t you pass out?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said David, “I think maybe I did? I woke up and I could barely breathe, so I went outside, and then my head cleared. I took a few deep breaths and came back to get the rest of you.”

“I mean, we were all hyperventilating while he was unconscious, he probably inhaled a lot less,” said Sasha.

“Alright,” Jon said, releasing David’s arm. “I, ah. Thank you. I’m Jon, this is Martin, that’s Sasha, and Maria.”

“And Elias,” said Elias. Jon blinked.

Even at this ungodly hour of the night, the Head of the Magnus Institute was immaculate, fully dressed in a sharp black suit, hair perfectly in place. David jumped up in surprise as he appeared out of the rainy darkness, and Elias offered him a handshake.

“I commend your paranoia, Jon, though it’s come a bit late. You really should have stopped to think about what you were doing _before_ you set a monster loose in the Archives,” said Elias.

“What?” said Jon weakly.

“Don’t worry, though,” said Elias. “As far as I can tell you seem to have pulled it off. Good to see you alive, David.”

“Er,” said David. “Thank you? Who are you?”

Elias cocked his head, and Jon heard sirens in the distance.

“How about this, Jon,” he said. “You get out of the way and explain to David what’s going on, and I’ll deal with the fire brigade.”

“I, ah, alright? Thank you?” sputtered Jon, struggling to his feet. “You—you don’t, uh—do you even know what happened?”

“I was watching the security cameras. We’ll talk later.” Elias walked halfway up the Institute steps and stopped there to wait as the sirens grew louder.

“Come on,” said Martin, “My car is over here. We need to put that lug wrench back anyway.”

“You have a car?” said Jon.

“Yeah!! Right around… ah…. Here it is!”

“Oh,” said Jon. “That’s not a car, that’s a dumpster on wheels.”

“Jon! This car indirectly saved your life tonight!”

“I’ve definitely seen worse,” said Maria. She tried to open one of the back doors.

“Oh, uh, that one doesn’t really work,” said Martin. “You’ll have to get in on the other side.”

Sasha opened the other back door with a protesting creak. A box of crackers and a shoe fell out.

“…In my defense,” said Martin, shaking the bottle of hairspray, “This clutter did just save all your lives. Um, anyone want crackers?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So the reason David (correctly) assumed that he could just pass a delirious Jon to Martin and Martin would hold him and that would calm him down was, when he woke up—well actually when he first woke up all he registered was “this room is Bad I cannot Breathe and I need to Leave Immediately”, but once he breathed some oxygen and the room had aired out a bit and he came back, what he saw was two women collapsed in badass poses, one still clutching a weapon, and behind them, Martin’s unconscious body protectively cradling Jon’s unconscious body, which was unconsciously clinging to him, and he basically had our fandom reaction and went “omg they’re adorable, we stan forever”
> 
> And anyways. When Jon woke up and started panicking he was just like “ah, yes, you wish to be with your boyfriend, understandable. Here you go”
> 
> ahem. and then Elias was just like "yes I was just. sitting in my apartment/flat and just. staring at you via the security feed. because that's a very reasonable explanation for how I Know Things, and also not weird or creepy at all."


	4. Testing testing 1 2 3

He put his fork down. He hadn’t been paying attention. Stupid. Now he’d have to get up and ask for another one and he was so tired and his food would probably be cold by the time he got back. He stared at his plate and thought of just eating with his hands instead. At least he couldn’t lose those. It wasn’t his dignity that stopped him but the knowledge that his hands hadn’t been washed anytime soon and were probably Filthy and he did have some standards still and not poisoning himself with his own germs was one of them.

He moved his hand restlessly and something bounced against the plate. He looked down. It was his fork, still miraculously sitting on the tray where he’d put it down. He picked it up and looked at it suspiciously.

It never missed a chance to ruin his meals. This was out of character, but as far as he could tell the fork was still there, was still real, so he finished eating. His cup didn’t disappear when he put it down. He saved a bit of bread and put it in his pocket. A few minutes later when he reached for it, it was there.

He left the shelter, not sure what he was looking for but knowing that he had to find an answer. There was an empty candybar wrapper lying on the ground, sparkling under a sheet of fresh rain. He picked it up and brushed it off. It was a nice wrapper. Very colorful. He liked it a lot, he decided. He paused to form an emotional bond with the candy wrapper before reluctantly putting it in his pocket and letting go of it.

He counted to ten.

The wrapper was still there.

It was taunting him. It had to be, it just wanted to give him false hope. But he had to know. After all, he was certain he’d take the bait sooner or later.

He slipped the ring off his finger and into his pocket. Dropped it, felt it brush past his fingers. He forced himself to take his hands out of his pockets and wait for a moment, heart racing.

It was still there when he reached for it, and he knew the vase wouldn’t have missed its chance to take that from him. Something had changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ive been in agony i told mysel f I hAd to finish this before I started Another Chapter Fic bc I'm so TIRED of having UNFINISHED FICS sitting forevera nd LANGUISHING on my PAGE  
anyway here's a very short chapter soon to be followed by a longer but lighter one WE'RE GONNA FINISH THIS I SWEAR TO GOD. I WILL FINISH IT IF IT KILLS ME also thanks Convenientalias for making me write tonight she's the reason this chapter exists


	5. Spring cleaning BEFORE you go gallivanting off on adventures, my foolish young employees, or you get no cake!

They all just fit into Martin’s car; once Jon had wedged himself in next to Sasha in the backseat there wasn’t much room. David was in the front passenger’s seat, angled to face Martin in the driver’s seat and the rest of them in the back.

Martin self-consciously snatched up a few bits of trash—a cookie wrapper, a couple receipts and a napkin—looked around for somewhere to put them and then stuffed them in his pockets.

“So,” said Jon just as David started to say something. “…Um. I’ve got a lot of questions, you probably do too. You go first.”

“What day is it?” asked David.

“Tuesday.”

“Ah, good, so it hasn’t even been a week. It felt longer.”

There was an uncomfortably long silence.

“…What month do you think it is?” said Jon.

“June?”

“Ah. It’s the 12th of February.”

David went very still.

“What year?”

“…2016.”

He took a moment to process this, then nodded.

“Feel alright?” Jon asked him, “not going to go mad from the shock or anything, are you?”

“No, no, I’m alright. I think—on some level, I knew it had been a long time. Where’s Andre?”

“That’s a Martin question. Martin?”

“Um,” said Martin, quietly. David turned towards him. “Uh, don’t panic, he’s not dead or anything, at least as far as I know! I just… Well, I couldn’t find him. I was trying to do follow-up on the statement and I couldn’t find him, and then I decided to try to find this vase and I tried again and he’s just… gone off the grid, as far as I can tell. But! That goes along with what we know about him from the time he gave the statement! He’d already sold his house—”

“He sold the house?” said David sharply.

“Uh, yes, he did that not long before he came to us. I’m not sure where he was living, I think he might have been homeless. I wasn’t there myself, but Rosie remembers him because he picked up her stapler and then it disappeared and he burst into tears and apologized for five minutes. Rosie thought he was crazy because she didn’t remember having a stapler, which is weird because there were staples in a bunch of the papers on her desk and nobody else had a stapler, and then she needed one later that day and had to go out and buy one. I, uh, put the pieces together after I’d read his statement. She still thinks he was just a really weird guy and that she never had a stapler before that day.”

Jon silently wondered how he’d ever thought Martin was incompetent.

David appeared to be processing this. “…Right. I’m sorry, what’s this about statements and him coming to you?”

“Oh! Right! We work in the archives for the Magnus Institute, Jon’s Head Archivist and Sasha and I are assistants. Maria’s a friend. She’s the one who found your vase and brought it here—well, I mean, not _your_ vase, technically, the—the vase you were—inside of, you know. Anyways, the Institute researches the supernatural, and our main source of new information is statements given by people who’ve had, um, paranormal experiences? I’m not sure how Andre heard of us but he came in one day and gave his statement about the vase and, ah, losing you; but didn’t provide any follow-up address, and I haven’t been able to locate him. I’m sorry.”

“…Right. But how did you find me?”

“Oh, Jon’s been trying to put some sense into the Archive; the last Archivist left a horrible mess, so we’ve been going through old statements that weren’t correctly filed and we found Andre’s,” said Martin.

“And then _Martin_ enlisted the aid of the entire Acquisitions department as well as their extended families to find the vase,” said Jon. “Martin’s the real hero here, if you want to thank someone. I didn’t know about this project until tonight.”

“I, uh, I just asked around, if anyone had seen an evil teleporting vase. Maria found it.”

“I did find it,” said Maria, “and it nearly killed me. You now owe me a life debt. I accept payments in chocolate.”

David chuckled.

“Alright, that sounds fair. –Who’s Elias?”

“Elias is the Head of the Institute,” said Jon.

“Oh, that explains some things,” said David. Jon looked at him curiously. “Well, he seemed… there’s something odd about him. And who watches the security cameras at their workplace from their home at night? That’s just weird. But, I mean, the head of an institute researching the supernatural sounds like the kind of job that, I don’t know, involves some sort of supernatural compensation?”

“I… doubt it? I mean, I’ve never seen him do anything—I suppose it’s possible,” stammered Jon. “Actually, he’s always seemed rather skeptical about the supernatural. Likes to harp about the Institute’s mission being to use logic to prove whether or not there’s any truth to it all.”

“He really doesn’t help with Jon’s desperate skeptic attitude,” said Sasha. Jon coughed.

“Excuse me my what?”

“You were just nearly killed by a vase, come on, you can’t pretend you don’t believe in the supernatural.”

“Of course I believe in the supernatural, but that doesn’t mean I believe every statement given by every confused person suffering from night terrors,” snapped Jon.

“Speak of the devil,” said David quietly, and Jon turned to see Elias walking towards them.

Martin rolled down his window. “Hey! I don’t hear sirens anymore, did you take care of it?"

Elias bent down and rested his arm on the side of the car, looking past Martin at Jon. “The fire truck is gone, I told them it was a false alarm set off by my Head Archivist smoking a cigarette right under one of the smoke detectors.”

Jon sighed. “Thank you for that.”

“I’m aware that the real explanation is even less reasonable. Why don’t we go clean up the storage room, and you’ll explain to me why you thought it was a good idea to use the Institute’s resources to go on a rogue artifact hunt?”

“Um,” said Martin quietly, “I—”

“I told him to,” said Jon. “Didn’t think it through actually. It started as simple statement follow up, then I thought it was…disconcerting, that nobody could find such a distinctive vase and asked him to dig up everything he could on it. I wasn’t really expecting the vase itself to turn up on our doorstep—thank you, Maria.”

Elias just looked at him for a few seconds. Jon stared back, thinking that he could understand why David thought there was something supernatural about Elias. He’d never seen eyes that green before. “Hmm,” Elias said finally, “Alright, I’ll forgive you if you clean up the mess.”

To say that the storage room was a mess would be putting it mildly. The box Sasha had hit had spilled papers across the floor, which was already strewn with an assortment of items previously belonging to the Ramaos. There were shards of porcelain in the center of the room. The floor was streaked with soot near the door, and there was _something_ with long claws stretched out as if trying to open it. It was nothing but black ash now, shape too warped to understand. Elias kicked it and the torso section collapsed, flakes of ash drifting into the air.

“Martin, get a broom,” Elias said.

David Ramao got the job of collecting the items from the vase and putting them in a large garbage bag, while Sasha picked up the files she’d knocked out of the box, Martin tried to scrub the soot off the floor and Jon swept up the ashy remains of the thing from the vase. He’d insisted on doing that job himself. He wanted to be sure it was dead. However, seeing the charred body crumble against the bristles of the broom like dried-out clots of dirt wasn’t doing his peace of mind any favors either. He was breathing hard by the time he got it all swept up into another garbage bag. He tied the bag shut in a tight knot and sat down to breathe.

The garbage bag crinkled slightly as the plastic settled into the floor. He jumped, heart racing. Elias raised an eyebrow. He seemed amused. Bastard.

They had told Maria not to worry about cleaning up, but she’d said she was going to make tea. He could hear the reassuring sounds of water boiling and cups clinking from down the hall. He focused on that. Everything was going to be fine and normal now.

He’d set the garbage bag full of ashes down standing upright; the upper section had been slowly bending, and now it collapsed with a rather loud crinkling sound. Jon jumped reflexively to his feet. Elias laughed.

_Bastard_. Had he come just to watch? He certainly wasn’t helping.

“David, I understand you’re having an emotional moment, but please, I’d like to be able to lock up sometime this year,” said Elias. “I don’t trust Jon to do it anymore.”

Jon scoffed, then turned to look at David. He was holding a copy of Catch 22.

“I didn’t believe him,” he said softly. “I thought he was going crazy. I didn’t think I could have forgotten—it took us months of planning to get this book signed. It was his favorite. I didn’t think I could have forgotten a trip to America, but I did. I forgot it had ever happened. I didn’t remember he’d ever had the book.”

Rather than put the book in the bag, he laid it gently next to him, and kept it close by while he picked up the rest. When Sasha swept up the broken shards of porcelain he asked to keep them. They put them in a box, and he picked out one of the smoother pieces and put it in his pocket.

Maria poked her head into the room. “Tea’s ready, you guys. Are you done?”

“Er, mostly?” said Martin, looking up from a still-dark streak on the floor.

“Finish that first,” said Elias. Jon’s blood boiled and he started to say something.

“Excuse me,” said Maria brightly, “I respect your desire to keep a clean workplace, but your employees are probably in shock and David hasn’t eaten in 4 years. I think it’s time for a tea break.”

Ah good, she was much more coherent than he would have been.

Elias chuckled darkly.

“_Well_, if you’re all in _shock_, don’t let me further _traumatize_ you by requiring you to deal with the consequences of your actions. Martin, you can finish that tomorrow, but so help me if the floor is not clean by then you’re paying for the repairs out of pocket.”

“Hey,” said Jon. “Why is the stain Martin’s problem? I told you this was my idea.”

Elias looked at him. “Do you really want to get into this, Jon?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Pay for it yourself.”

“That’s fair.”

“No, no it’s not, the—the whole fire thing _was_ actually my fault,” said Martin.

“Too late, Jon is being gallant. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“You’re being quite charming yourself tonight, Elias,” sneered Jon. “What’s next, will you put us in the stocks?”

“Jon. You know what happened here. _Don’t_ act like you’re innocent. It was stupid to accept an artifact yourself, it was wildly irresponsible to try to deal with it in the Archives, and it was borderline suicidal to invent a… some kind of amateur ritual to silence it.” He paused and took a deep breath. “However, I’ll admit that I’m impressed with the way you handled it. I’m not sure if it was luck or skill, but don’t get overconfident. You’re still learning.” He turned on his heel and walked out the door. Maria stood where she was, arms crossed, without moving aside and raised an eyebrow at him, but he twisted easily around her like water around a stone and disappeared down the hallway without breaking his stride.

“Okay,” said David, “It’s not just me, right? That was weird?”

“That was weird,” said Sasha.

Jon sat down and focused on taking deep breaths.

“Tea,” said Maria decisively.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally put the chapter 1 endnotes in teh chapter 1 endnotes box so they don't keep showing up at the end of Every Single Chapter. Also hi yes I started this quite a while ago I'm now experiencing season 5 with the rest of you and aaaaaaa. still haven't listened to 165 bc i was feeling Not Emotionally Up To It on that day (or since) but I'm prepared to violently love it as with the rest of season 5 so far


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